1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to computer application programs. More particularly, it relates to a control method and apparatus for flexibly encouraging educational or otherwise beneficial programs and for discouraging non-educational or otherwise non-beneficial computer application programs.
2. Background of Related Art
Computers are wonderful devices. They can do everything, from business to entertainment to teaching. Because of all the benefits and because of the importance of the computer in today""s society, parents or guardians often want to encourage their children to use a computer.
However, there is more to life than just the computer, and parents often want their children to balance their use of the computer, or at least the particular application programs used on the computer, perhaps because they may be afraid that they will spend too much time on the computer to the detriment of other learning experiences.
Parental or guardian involvement is an important key to a child""s education. However, many people have very busy lives and must balance aspects such as family and work. Thus, computer usage may not be monitored by a parent at all times that a child is using it, either for practical reasons or because the parent wants to instill responsibility in their children without being overprotective.
To this end, the parent or guardian of a child using a computer may want to limit the child""s use of certain non-educational or otherwise non-beneficial programs (e.g., computer games), and to encourage the use of other, educational or otherwise beneficial programs (e.g., educational programs).
Since parents are not always able to monitor every minute of computer usage, a conventional technique for automatically limiting usage of a particular computer application is to use a built in time limit for a particular period of play. These conventional programs do limit the length of play, but typically do not limit the number of plays. This may be because computer game companies may not find it in their best interest to limit the amount of time that a given game sold by them can be played. Moreover, these time limiting games typically relate only to the game being played, and not to other, unrelated application programs (or programs by another vendor). Thus, a child having free access to a computer may be able to play many different games (or other non-beneficial programs) for as long as they like, changing games or vendors as the game time limits expire, essentially rendering useless the intent of the time limiting function of the individual games.
There is thus a need for a technique and apparatus for more effectively limiting the use of a computer for certain non-educational or otherwise non-beneficial application programs, while at the same time encouraging use of the computer for preferred, educational or otherwise beneficial application programs.
In accordance with the principles of the present invention, an application usage time limiter comprises a time limiter, and a usage limiter configuration file including at least one entry associating a first application program with a number of credits given based on usage of the first application program, and at least one entry associating a second application program with a number of credits taken away based on usage of the second application program. The application usage time limiter limits use of the second application program based on a number of available credits for a particular user.
A method of limiting usage of a non-beneficial application program on a computer comprises monitoring an amount of usage of a beneficial application program. An amount of allowed usage of a non-beneficial application program is credited based on the monitored amount of usage of the beneficial application program.